Analysis Of Ethics By Linda Pastan

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Ethics and Human Life
A political (feminist) criticism of “Ethics” becomes a commentary on how our society views the elderly, especially elderly women. The author, Linda Pastan, is the narrator of the poem and presents herself recalling an ethics class taken when she was young. An ethical delimina is presented by a teacher. The students are asked , ”if there were a fire in a museum/ which would you save, a Rembrandt painting/ or an old woman who hadn’t many/years left anyhow?” (lines 3-5). The societal questions raised by “Ethics” focus on how does youth value the elderly, especially elderly women, and should something be deemed valuable simply due to its age. The focus of “Ethics” concerns how the young students value an old woman.

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